


Build Her World

by Rosencrantz, Snacky



Category: Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Character Study, Double Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-16
Updated: 2010-09-16
Packaged: 2017-10-11 21:32:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/117338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosencrantz/pseuds/Rosencrantz, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snacky/pseuds/Snacky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A double-drabble, exploring one reason Galadriel turned down Frodo's offer of the ring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Build Her World

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Back to Middle Earth Challenge:
> 
> Create a story, poem, or artwork that responds to the following quote:  
> "How wrong it is for a woman to expect the man to build the world she  
> wants, rather than to create it herself." -- Anais Nin
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks to Hina, Jess, and Persona for the helpful comments.

_...like her brother Finrod, of all her kin the nearest to her heart, she had dreams of far lands and dominions that might be her own to order as she would without tutelage._

~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Frodo offers Galadriel the ring, the first thing that comes to mind is the reason why she came to Middle-Earth, why she stayed even when the Valar pardoned the Noldor, allowing them to return to Aman.

Her mother had called her "Nerwen," and she had always been strong-willed, competitive, wise, insightful - a match for any man. Her greatest desire had been to rule her own land. It was the reason she left Aman and gone with her uncle and her brothers, leading their people on the long trek across the Grinding Ice. She wanted to live on her own terms, under her own rule, not under her father's, or any other's. And she had.

Millennia passed - years full of war and death, loss and horror, but also years full of joy and love, years spent learning how to live in this land and how to rule, and how to care for her people and her lands.

She looks at Frodo's offering, and she knows: she doesn't need the ring. She doesn't need Sauron's power, _his_ power. Turning down the ring proves she has learned. But it also affirms what she's accomplished.

"I have my realm. I have made my world."

~~~~~~~~~~~~

 _"And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!"_

 _She lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a great light that illuminated her alone and left all else dark. She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad._

 _"I pass the test," she said. "I will diminish, and go into the West and remain Galadriel."_


End file.
